Of Moments and Memories
by Love.is.a.Game
Summary: Remus reflects on love lost, and the power of a memory. A RL/SB BL story


**A/N: This was a story that was a rather large hit on my LJ page before I received several requests to move it to the FF. net community. Here it is, and please let me be the first to welcome you to the tale of :**

**Memories and Momentos**

By: Love . me . if . you . dare

**Your fingertips across my skin ; The palm trees swaying in the wind**  
_Slowly, through a vector,_

He walked down the hall toward the dark door with cautious, slow steps. Each and every motion echoing in the grand, open cavern that had become this place in the past three months since...but for now, he fought against that thought, kept his feet moving after the brief stutter they'd taken.  
But he could still see it- the forever repeating movie in his mind. Dumbledore said he would feel sad for a long while, but that _He _wouldn't want Remus to be sad; that _He _and James and Lilly would want him to move- to help Harry.  
Dumbledore was a fool. Harry didn't need help.  
Remus did... because...

**You sang me spanish lullabies ; the sweetest sadness in your eyes**  
_Sirius fell._

He had been coming to the door every day for the better part of three weeks. The rest of the manor was haunted; a ghost without a master.  
But the door still called out to him- if only he'd open the door.  
He stood there now, once more, unsure and in pain, hand stretched half way to the knob.  
Five... Ten... Eighteen minutes pass. Not a hair moves on the werewolf, save the lone tear that rolls the length of his cheek before taking the long plunge of his neck to soak into his robes.  
He couldn't do it. Not so soon after....  
But maybe tomorrow.  
And so the hand fell away, and one more time he turned to walk away from the door, back down the stairs to join the ghosts of the house. One more day.

**... Clever trick**  
_He didn't look dead._

The couch still clung to the scent of _him_. Remus had realized almost the moment he'd sat on it the first time after...  
Moony howled mournfully in his mind.  
But he didn't sit on the couch.  
He went to the desk, fingering over the stray parchments. Watching the messy scrawl as though it would show something more than the words. And it did.  
To him.  
Countless ages ago, in countless letters, over countless summer nights and days, that scrawl had replied to him.  
Eons ago; a lifetime passed. The words spelling out magic. Telling secrets of love and life and happiness...  
A shaky breath later, Remus slid to his knees, tugging one of the papers into a violently tight grip, bringing it to too-prickly eyes as his body slumped against the desk, rocking with the memories of past nights... chances too far gone.  
Chances never fully realized.  
One more tear traveled down his face. One more day.

**I never want to see you unhappy ; I thought you'd want the same for me**  
_He looked shocked._

He couldn't stay there at night.  
He had never been able to sleep without _Him _curled closely beside himself in that house. It was always too dark; too suppressive.  
Slowly, he went to the fire, suppressing the urge to run and hide as he called out the name to the fire, sticking his head through the green flames to warn them. Moments later, his body followed.  
Without a word, he passed Tonks' worried gaze, walking as a ghost to the stairs, murmuring something close to a farewell before ascending to the attic room, where he would never sleep restfully, and would wake only a few hours later screaming and too restless to try and sleep once more.  
He would rise, write a brief note of thanks and be gone back to the manor before Tonks could be sure he'd been there.  
Every time, another tear would fall; every time, more days passed.

**Goodbye, my almost lover ; Goodbye my hopeless dream**  
_Warm, shocked eyes turned to see him one last time,_

It was colder than he'd expected, the day his hand finally came to rest on the metal of the tarnished silver knob, almost six months after... The metal bit into his palm, making him want to cry out at the unfairness of that lack of warmth.  
The pain seared in his chest, soaring to make his knees tremble and his wrists ache, but he finally turned the knob, letting the door swing open of it's own volition.  
The ghosts of the mansion quieted into a screaming silence. With downcast eyes, he hovered in the center of the room, taking in the scuff marks of years of misuse; caught the corner of an abandoned book, the flash of a forgotten jacket.  
Slowly his eyes turned up, haunted, around the empty room, and he realized with a jolt of shock, that he was still looking for _Him _after all this time- as though he would pop out from the messy coverlets and scream out '_It was all a joke_!'  
They had planned it out so many times, Sirius and James. When James and Lily had been taken, it had settled like a ball of ice in the pit of his stomach. It had hit harder that he thought Sirius could have caused it.  
But now, with _Him_ gone... There was a constant shard of pain, just through his heart that had strings running through all of his limbs. The moons were hell- Moony couldn't see why Padfoot was gone;  
Why his friend was never there anymore, when his scent permiated his memory.  
Some small movement caught his eye's corner, and he felt his heart take a bounding leap, Moony whining with something near desperate triumph as Remus wheeled around in what had to be the fastest movement the house had seen in six months.  
Rumus felt the physical blow of Moony's despairing howl wrack through his mind as he caught sight of himself- much younger, waving absently at a camera over a book, Sirius and James both half-draped over him, Peter falling over himself in front, all four smiling and dancing about in the warm, faded spring day.  
The picture was stuck to the wall with a sticking charm, and even as he watched, the picture-Sirius opened his mouth and Remus swore he could Feel that laugh in the air; he could hear it carry across the room, feel it's carress on his face.

**I'm trying not to think about you....**  
_as he stood by,_

Slowly, as if he were trapped in this moment of time, Remus stepped forward, deeper into the room. Pressing close to the unmade bed, he allowed his eyes only one moment's glance to the pillow where Sirius's body was still imprinted before they returned, addicted and drawn to the picture, watching the four friends dance and gambol in the warm, faded light.  
For a moment, he couldn't remember how to breathe as the image of Sirius looked out, directly at him; hand reaching out to graze lightly over picture-Remus's side in an unconscious motion of caring.

**Can't you just let me be?**  
_watching in horror,_

They had just been released from Herbology in the picture; James had a small bit of dirt smudged under his eye- Remus smiled numbly as he remembered James complaining that he could never have a decent picture without something on his face- Peter was still flushed from the prank they had pulled on Severus Snape during the lesson; Remus's own face was spread with a lightly embarrassed flush of annoyance at the antics of his friends, even as he walked beside them, compassion and friendship in his eyes.  
It was two weeks since the first full moon they had spent with him; beside him as Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs. The memory of that day seemed to come to him with an eerie accuracy, and left him questioning weather it had all been real;  
but he could still hear that laugh;  
He could still feel those warm eyes on his face.

**So long my luckless romance....**  
_not knowing what to do._

With a cry that echoed in the large room, Remus surged forward almost too suddenly, fingers searching for purchass to bring that image closer- searching for a way to being _Him _back.  
He didn't notice the tear streak down his cheek, or the millions that seemed to follow in it's path. He barely heard the desperate, animal noises escaping him as Moony howled in misery within.  
His fingers would not- could not- take the picture to his heart.  
Another strangled scream escaped; something between the dying hope of the wolf and the last echoes of loss.

**my back is turned on you...**  
_He watched,_

The day they had graduated, Sirius and James had insisted on one final parting prank. They set off thousands of hoarded Zonko's noise makers and smuggled muggle fireworks to light the sky over the Great Hall; showing in the charmed ceiling and causing all who were present to cry out in glee.  
When the Merpeople came to the surface, singing in thier horrible screaming voices the Hogwart's theme, everyone laughed and covered thier ears in dismay as the Four Mirauders looked over thier chaotic handy work with placid, nostalgic smiles; standing side-by-side in one of the doorways off the hall, watching everyone calm down from the shock and dismay at the 'ruining' of the graduation ceremony. James had pulled Remus aside and told him that Sirius and he were to be moving to a flat together in muggle London.  
Later, after all was settled and Proffessor McGonnogal officially pronounced them as a graduated class, chaos broke loose once more; hundreds of students voiceing thier happiness in success. Somewhere in the chaos, Sirius Black had found him; grabbed his arm and tugged Remus to him, shocking both of them for a moment as the smaller boy crashed into his chest.  
"Sirius, is there something wrong?" He remembered asking, feeling horridly like he'd been kicked when Sirius only watched him silently for a moment.  
"Yes- I've not done something I've been meaning to for years..."  
Just as Remus went to question what exactly this 'something' was, Sirius had leant forward and pressed thier lips together, holding Remus tightly to himself.  
In the wild abandon of becoming Adults; of taking those last few steps away from childhood, nobody noticed when two friends slipped together, perfect harmony settling over them as they allowed themselves one another.

**Should have known you'd bring me heartache....**  
_holding back the scream of agony,_

Remus fell to his knees, hands curling into his hair, tugging harshly as the small noises began to die off; replaced by strangled sobs. Slowly, he found himself curled desperately around the lump of blankets that had been left just as _he _had left them at the end; unmade and hanging off the bed.  
The scent of burnt amber and something deeply undefined met his senses and brought another cry of sheer agony from him. The bedclothes still smelled of _him_.

**Almost Lovers always do....**  
_as the love of his life fell away into the cold shroud of death._

The night before the battle at the Minestry, they had been stretched out on the couch together.  
Remus's legs had been curled up beneath him, Sirius's head resting as a warm weight on his thigh, hand drawing nonsense on his calf as Remus read a tome from the Black Library. Sirius had the Daily Prophet opened and abandoned, stretched out acrost his chest.  
The quiet warmth of the fire had been a siren song, lulling them together in thier companionship.  
The mansion had almost felt warm, even with Madame Black's portrait muttering in the distance.  
"Remus" Sirius had murmured his name, almost absently.  
"What is it, Padfoot?" Remus remembered holding his place in the book, letting his other hand come to card through Sirius's gentle mass of hair as it fell in waves, hazle eyes meeting onyx in questioning wonder.  
"When the end comes for me, if you aren't with me, I'll wait for you." Remus hadn't known how to respond; he hadn't known Sirius meant the words then. He didn't know what to think. "I'll always wait for you, Remus."  
The gentle murmur of his name, the hands gently caressing his cheek as Sirius waited for a response had broken him.  
"You aren't going to die, Sirius. This war will end, and Harry can come and live here with yo-"  
"_Promise _me you'll wait for me, too." Sirius cut Remus's arguments off firmly, lifting himself from the couch to kneel before Remus, hands clasping the hand that had just been running in his hair. "Promise me you'll love me, no matter what."  
A moment had passed between them, onyx eyes fixed intensely on hazle.  
"I promise." The kiss had been painfully soft; had stirred a worry in Remus that he had forced aside viciously; Sirius would be fine....

**Goodbye, my almost Lover ; Goodbye my hopeless dream...**  
_Harry's scream of pain and denile echoed bloodily in Remus's heart as Sirius disappeared from his sight._

Lying on Sirius's bed, hands burried in the pillow that held the scent that calmed Moony to a desperate mass of silent mourning, Remus watched the picture of four friends dancing around in mid-afternoon sunlight and didn't stem the flow of tears that counted a million moments lost, and a million days to come that would be spent with this pain.  
He had pushed away the memory of that night, just as he had pushed away the act of entering this room;  
because he had known, deep down during that last night on the couch, that he would never hold his lover again.

**I'm trying not to think about you... Can't you just let me be?**

**

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End Credits

**Song credit to A Fine Frenzy, Lyrics in Bold face are circa the song titled 'Almost Lover'**

_All Characters herin pictured are circa the wonderfully creative mind of JK Rowling and I in no way have made profit from the production of this fiction, though we would all love to know that it was true in the end._

_I own the plotline, however, so please ask before you use it. So far, the only one authorized to use this story in any fashion is DrDragon.  
_


End file.
